Selecting High-Quality Cheese:

When selecting cheeses for freezing, avoid those with dry or cracked edges, mold that doesn't belong or cheeses that appear greasy on the surface. Check the date of prepackaged cheese to make sure it hasn't expired. Cheese keeps best in the refrigerator and freezing it will sacrifice some of its quality. Hard or semi-hard cheese can be frozen, but it may become develop a crumbly or mealy texture during freezing. However, it will retain its flavor and work just fine for cooking.

Best Cheeses to Freeze:

Camembert, Cheddar, Edam, Mozzarella, Muenster, Parmesan, Port du Salut, Provolone, Romano, and Swiss. Blue Cheese will retain its flavor, but become crumbly. Soft cheeses should be frozen when they reached the desired ripeness.

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Worst Cheeses to Freeze:

Container cream cheese, cottage cheese and ricotta cheese do not freeze well. Blocks of cream cheese can be frozen for later use as an ingredient in recipes.

Preparing for Freezing:

Hard and semi-hard cheeses can be grated, sliced or cut into blocks for freezing.

Suitable Packaging:

Wrap wheels, blocks or slices of cheese tightly in plastic or heavy-duty aluminum foil. Separate slices of cheese with wax paper before freezing. Grated cheese stores well in airtight containers.

Maximum Storage Time:

Freeze soft cheese and cheese spreads and dips for 1 month, and hard and semi-hard cheese for 3 to 6 months.

Thawing:

Thaw the amount of cheese needed for consumption in the refrigerator, then serve it at room temperature. Cheese used for cooking should also be thawed in the refrigerator.

Tips & Shortcuts:

Hard cheese grates well when it's frozen.

Refrigerating Cheese:

All natural cheese continues to age and change when stored. As a general rule, the softer the cheese, the more quickly it will spoil. If a small amount of mold appears on cheese, remove it and save the rest. Refrigerate soft cheese for 3 to 4 days, hard to semi-hard cheese for 2 to 3 weeks and cheese spreads and dips for 1 to 2 weeks.

For years I have been freezing cheese, especially when I see the expensive ones on sale or marked down. I leave it in the original wrapper and place them in a freezer bag and into the freezer they go. There are some that have been there for several years. I simply take whatever cheese I happen to want to have the day before, let it thaw in the fridge, then use it either for eating or cooking.

I have purchased big blocks of cheddar, mozzarella and jack cheeses to food-saver into smaller sized 1 pound chunks and have never had a problem with keeping these chunks in the refrigerator. I have been able to keep my cheeses for months this way! Just make sure there is not a bit of air in the package and to mark them well.

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If there is accidently one with just a little bit of air, make sure to mark to use that one first. Don't try to food-saver grated cheese, they come out in a big chunk that you have to try to crumble anyway, and there is the possibility of having air that will allow mold to grow on the cheese.

Yes you can! Just wrap well and tightly in plastic wrap before placing in your food saver. Try to use it by around two months for best flavor. Yes, it will be crumbly but crumbled Havarti is wonderful to use in vinegar and oil dressed salads and melts well so you can easily use it in omelets, and pasta, rice and veggie dishes. :-)

I would like to freeze "Super Hot Pepper" cheese from my local deli. I have one of those "Food Savers" food sealing systems. I will be freezing them in 1lb. individual packages. I have several questions:

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Can I freeze this type of cheese?

Should I have the deli slice the cheese for me into individual slices or slice them into 1lb. blocks?

How long can they stay in the freezer?

Will they lose any flavor when I thaw them out?

Once thawed out, how long will they stay good to eat?

Food Saver recommends freezing items for approx 1-2 hours before sealing them in their bags and then placing them in the freezer for storage.

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Freeze the cheese first, as suggested, then use the food saver. Doing this will keep the cheese in it's original shape. I tried to vacuum seal some shredded cheese, unfrozen, and it turned into a one blob of cheese. The flavor was fine after thawing but I had to slice it up to use. I have only froze blocks of cheese so I'm not sure if sliced cheese would work but I see no reason why it shouldn't. I LOVE my Food Saver and feel it's the best investment I have ever made due to the way it preserves all types of food for a very long time.

Answers

By bambi2003 (Guest Post)

February 10, 20070 found this helpful

Best Answer

I freeze cheese all the time, I live in a very rural area and only shop once a month. I freeze alot of things, and never had a problem with it turning to mush. I freeze both blocks and shredded, all different kinds.

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Yes you can freeze it. Use baggies and divide it up into smaller amounts, then put the baggies into a larger one, with a 3x5 card label in with them, with the contents written in felt marker with big dark letters.

Are you sure you want to eat that? Many processed cheese items have a lot of partially hydrogenated or fractionated oils, which are found to be more dangerous than saturated fats. I no longer eat those because they attack brain tissue pretty efficiently, so a lot of what I grew up with is out. There's still plenty of delicious stuff out there!

Hope this helps, whether you are a trans-fat eater or not. God bless you.

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I have frozen cream cheese in the store packaging. Freezing changes the texture of the cheese. The taste does not seem to change. It still can be used in recipes, but it can no longer be used by itself as a spread since it seems to dry out. So freezing it would depend on the use it is intended for. Hope this is helpful.

I have frozen cream cheese and if you let it thaw completely outside of the fridge, then put into the fridge, it is usually creamy like when it was first bought. If you put it straight into the fridge from the freezer, it will be crumbly and only good for use in cooking.

I have successfully frozen hard cheeses in their original packaging. Cream cheeses don't seem to like the freezer, though, so if they seem to be at the end of their life span in the refrigerator, I stir them into potatoes, scambled eggs, or bread dough.

Answers

Best Cheeses to Freeze: Camembert, Cheddar, Edam, Mozzarella, Muenster, Parmesan, Port du Salut, Provolone, Romano, and Swiss. Blue Cheese will retain its flavor, but become crumbly. Soft cheeses should be frozen when they reached the desired ripeness.

Worst Cheeses to Freeze: Container cream cheese, cottage cheese and ricotta cheese do not freeze well. Blocks of cream cheese can be frozen for later use as an ingredient in recipes.Good luck.

I know, American cheese is not a true cheese; however, my sister split a large quantity that was bought at Costco and it is too much for hubby and I to use in the near future. They are slices, but they not individually wrapped. Can they be frozen?